In
Fiorano Modenese there is a company that has become a global leader in
innovative and sustainable ceramic solutions. We are talking about Iris
Ceramica Group: 1,500 employees all over the world and a turnover exceeding
€550 million. The headquarter is located in Fiorano, but there are six
facilities scattered between the Modena and Reggio Emilia provinces plus two
production sites abroad in Germany and the US. For FARE INSIEME, Giampaolo
Colletti interviewed Federica Minozzi, CEO of the Iris Ceramica Group
by Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
“There is
always a better way of doing things.” This healthy obsession for excellence is
the mantra of a twenty-five year old from Emilia who, between the 1950s and
1960s, strived to do more. He had also said this unsuccessfully to his bank
manager where he had started to work right after getting his degree in
Economics. So the young Romano Minozzi decided to leave his steady job at the
bank to set up a business. A free and pioneering spirit, that of Minozzi. After
all, ever since University, he had thought about going into business because he
had always been moved by the desire to build something. “There is always a
better way of doing things,” as we mentioned earlier. And it was thus that, in
1961, in the productive hub of the Italian ceramic district, he decided to set
up IRIS - a name that could work well to express the company’s industrial plan:
“Industria Rivestimenti Italiani Sassuolo” (Sassuolo Italian Covering
Industry). We are in Fiorano Modenese, a town with 16,000 inhabitants in the
Modena province and at the gates of Sassuolo, a few kilometres from
world-famous Maranello. It is a particularly lively entrepreneurial moment for
an area that, from Modena, stretched all the way to Reggio Emilia. The
evolution of such a creation of his was so fast that, seven years later, he
began exporting to Germany, France and all over Europe. “There is always a
better way of doing things.” Because, after all, doing well is not enough. One
must do things to the best of their ability. All this means accepting change,
riding innovation and keeping up with the world. And even more, anticipating
revolutions. It is not by chance that, already in 1972, Minozzi talked about
environmental sustainability and did so choosing Piazza Santo Stefano, in the
heart of Bologna, for a type of ceramic flooring inspired by clods of turf. A
revolutionary project for the time curated by Gianni Sassi and which became a
stage for the installations and performances of 24 artists and two musicians -
including Franco Battiato.
New
challenges in a changing world. In the meantime, the second generation entered
the game in 1997 - his daughter Federica who now heads the group. “I hadn’t
graduated yet, but I had already started building a new brand that started from
the innovative technology linked with ceramics. Before then, you could use
either technical products boasting excellent performances but not appealing or
beautiful products which however were more fragile,” recalled Federica Minozzi,
CEO or Iris Ceramic Group, a world leader in the design of innovative solutions
and in the production and distribution of unique ceramic materials. An Emilian
heart combined with international ambition. The group is active in over 100
countries
and has a very precise objective: re-engineering ceramics to improve the
interaction between people and the environment they live in for a more elevated
concept of well-being. This is where a functional role is born for material.
“It is the sign of a new industrial humanism, i.e. doing business while paying
particular attention to the well-being of people,” stresses Minozzi. Iris
Ceramic Group has 1500 employees all over the world and a turnover exceeding
€550 million. The headquarters are indeed located in Fiorano Modenese, but
there are six facilities scattered between the Modena and Reggio Emilia
provinces. Plus two production sites abroad in Germany and the US. “We try to
anticipate the evolution of lifestyles, i.e. of the tastes and aspirations of
our clients. The R&D team is constantly at work exploring the possibilities
of expanding ceramic applications. Today’s clients look for functional,
aesthetically unique and high-performing surfaces while also caring about
environmental sustainability. They want materials with a performance capable of
improving the quality of life, curated down to the tiniest detail and with
revolutionary technical properties,” highlights Minozzi. It is thus that the
Design Your Slabs (DYS) technology was born, the eco Active Surfaces® boasting
anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-pollution and anti-noise properties or smart
Hypertouch surfaces.
The future
in the name of sustainability. Be ahead of the times and make a difference. H2
Factory™, the new production facility located in Castellarano, in the Reggio
Emilia province, will become operational by 2025. It will be powered by green
hydrogen thanks to a custom state-of-the-art system by Edison Next. It will be
the first and the only of its kind in the world and will produce full-body
technical ceramic slabs, called Ceramic 4D by Iris, where the fourth dimension
is sustainability. “My father coined the pioneering equation that
economy=ecology already in the 1960s: since then, sustainability has always
formed part of our DNA. We innovate with courage every day to find new
solutions and endless applications for a natural material such as ceramic,
among the most noble and high-performing, by applying it in a novel manner and
making way for new uses,” says Minozzi. Between human capital and innovative
technologies, this Emilian entrepreneur has no doubt about what the priority
is. “Systems can be built, but culture and community are created with people,
who are the assets at the basis of corporate culture. Our group’s excellence
starts from them, the engine of innovation and the most precious resource for
success.”
https://podcast.confindustriaemilia.it/
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